Sara Hopkins (Seli)
Associate Professor · Director of the Cherokee Language Program
Sara Hopkins (Seli) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Western Carolina University, where she also serves as Director of the Cherokee Language Program. She teaches courses in Cherokee language and linguistic anthropology, drawing on her interdisciplinary background in language, culture, and music. She is a non-indigenous ally.
Dr. Hopkins earned her Ph.D. in Music (Ethnomusicology) from Columbia University in 2016, with additional graduate training in linguistic anthropology at New York University. Her research and teaching focus on Indigenous language revitalization, music, and cultural preservation.
She is the editor of The Cherokee Singing Book (1846): A Scholarly Edition, forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press as part of the Sounding Spirit series. She also leads the Eastern Cherokee Histories in Translation (ECHT) project, which has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Heisse Historical Preservation Fund, and the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.
Dr. Hopkins also co-founded and co-directs the Cherokee Language Repertory Choir, a community-based initiative that brings together language and song. Before joining WCU in 2016, she spent five years teaching music and arts at New Kituwah Academy, the Cherokee language immersion school of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
